Homework will be assigned as indicated on the homework page. It is your responsibility to check the homework page and announcements page frequently for any updates. If you find yourself struggling with any assignments I strongly encourage you to stop by my office hours or make an appointment to see me. Assignments will be accepted up to a week late for 50% credit (after the first two) but after a week no credit will be given.

Collaborating with classmates on the homework is an excellent way to learn the material and is highly encouraged. Wholesale copying of solution sets, however, is strictly forbidden. Also it is very much in your interest to make sure you can do the work without assistance.

Inevitably some of you are going to get sick during the semester or have other personal issues. I feel strongly that it's not my place to pass judgement on your affairs so I plan to drop each student's worst 2 homework scores and each student is allowed to turn in two assignments up to a week late with no penalty. This gives everyone has the leeway to deal with minor emergencies. For serious emergencies like an extended illness or the death of a close family member an official note is required and individual arrangements will be made.

You are responsible for everything that occurs in lecture and tutorial. If you can't attend a class for any reason it's your responsibility to find out what happened. As regular attendance is essential to learning this material excessive absences may be noted and potentially penalized.

An important point to remember is the material builds on itself so the class will become more difficult over time. Even if you find the first few weeks easy it's a good idea to work hard for the first exam and make sure you have the basics down when the going gets rough. Also every year some students will do well on the first exam and get cocky just in time to start failing after the drop deadline. Don't let this be you.

The exams are worth 100 points each, the final is worth 150 points, and the homework is worth 50 points for a total of 510 points. The exam grades will be curved before the final computation and several homework grades will be dropped. Students who stand out in class or office hours may receive a qualitative boost to their final grade.

This year we will be using some Java applets for demos in class. You will also be expected to graph functions on your homework. It is hard (but not impossible) to do the graphing problems without the use of computational tools like Mathematica, Maple or modern graphing calculators. A graphing calculator is probably the simplest option but even if you already own a fancy calculator it's worthwhile to check out the software packages as well. Not only are they more powerful, if less convenient, than graphing calculators there are also examples from past years worked out and are available from the resources page.

I trust you will abide by the Notre Dame honor code in this course and in return I will spell out the course rules as clearly as possible. Apart from the standard notice on exams, to remind you different rules are in place than those on the homework, this is the last time I will mention this subject. I take cheating very seriously but an honor code is about having integrity without needing reminders.